


Never Looked More Beautiful

by sebastian2017



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies)
Genre: Abusive Parents, Angst, Beach Divorce, Closeted Character, Erik Lehnsherr is not a Happy Bunny, F/M, Forced Outing (sorta), Internalized Transphobia, Not A Fix-It, Trans Female Character, Unhappy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-18
Updated: 2018-07-18
Packaged: 2019-06-12 06:22:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15333750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sebastian2017/pseuds/sebastian2017
Summary: “He holds her after, no matter that they’re cramped in an uncomfortable motel bed for one, or that it’s nearly four in the morning by now. They lay together in the dark silence for a while. Erik feels the hands on the clock tick by lazily. Charles strokes her hair and brings his hand down to her mid back every time, as though she truly did have hair like a woman, that flowed down her neck and shoulders and curled, all lovely… she thinks she might just be able to fool herself, for just a moment, that any of this is real.”





	Never Looked More Beautiful

**Author's Note:**

> cw: implied homophobia, transphobia (mentioned and internalized), brief mention of police brutality, closeting, forced outing (sorta), descriptions of dysphoria
> 
> note: Erik uses he/him pronouns at some points in this fic, as she feels safer in the closet. But she's a trans woman and uses she/her pronouns so please refer to her as such in any comments, thank you

Erik is fifteen when his foster parents decide they’ve had enough of his acting strange. He doesn’t think he’s done that much wrong, but his foster parents seem to disagree. It comes out of nowhere - or at least, seems that way to Erik. It’s possible he’s just been so distracted with things as of late he hasn’t even noticed the build up to this. He goes to school as normal one day and when he returns in the afternoon, Talia, his foster mother, is waiting at the couch with a frown on her face even before she spots him. 

She notes, “You didn’t pass by the barber’s. Again.”

“I forgot.” Erik shrugs. That’s a lie. He hasn’t forgotten. His foster parents have spent the last week reminding him every day to go by and cut his hair. Erik doesn’t want to, though. It’s not as though it’s so long. It’s only just started reaching the collar of shirts. He doesn’t know why, but Erik likes the way it softens his face and the way it’s long enough to tuck behind his ears sometimes. His headmaster and foster parent certainly don’t agree.

“Just you wait ‘til your father gets home,” Talia huffs. 

Erik makes no attempt to hide the way he glares at her. “Noah is not my father.” 

He stomps away after that, going to hide up in his room the way he always does when he’s stuck in this home. He can’t wait until he can leave. The second he turns 18… he’s gone. Gone as far as he can possibly muster. He hates this house, he hates his foster mother, and most of all, he hates his foster father. His resentment only intensifies when he feels the downstairs door open and, no surprise, Noah come barging through to his room. 

“Your school called again, said your hair’s still too long,” Noah complains. “What the hell do I send you out with barbershop money for, boy? You wanna explain once and for all what the hold up is?” 

Erik ignores the pain in his gut at being called ‘boy’. “I’m top of my class no matter how long my hair gets. Why do they care so much?”

“It’s about looking like a man. A real man. Not that you know much about that, do you, Erik? Think no one’s noticed how you’re always disappearing with the neighbor’s boy…” Noah scoffs and gestures Erik closer. “Come downstairs or I’ll bring you down myself.” 

For all Erik stalls and acts belligerent, he knows how to pick his battles. And he knows when he’s pushed his limits. Scowling the whole while, he gets up and goes downstairs, though it doesn’t stop Noah from gripping his shoulder too harshly and pushing and shoving him the whole way. He’s not surprised to find Talia waiting with a pair of clippers, nor is he surprised when Noah holds him down in a chair while Talia takes the clippers to his hair and leaves him with nothing but a buzzcut. They’re in the kitchen; Erik lets himself indulge in a crude fantasy of making use of all the metal around him to get them off him, to show them that he can’t be messed with. But he can’t do that. He knows he can’t, or he’ll expose himself far too much. Besides, Erik doesn’t even know if he has enough control for it. It’s been ages since he last tried to move anything bigger than a coin. 

When the clippers are off, Erik doesn’t wait to be dismissed. He just gets up and dashes back to his room to hide away for the rest of the evening, not caring if it means he has to miss out on dinner. He’s not hungry anyway. He’s too busy crawling under his sheets, crying as he tries not to think of the last time he’d been held down and had his hair sheared off, of the grief for his lost hair, of how he’ll miss the way it smoothed out the harsh edges of his face. 

That night he dreams that his hair is long, longer than it ever was. All the way down his back, soft and pretty and braided. He’s in a dress in his dream, that frames a figure with far more curves than he has in real life and shows off breasts he definitely doesn’t have. In his dream, the boy next door takes him on dates to the market and restaurants and school dances, and no one bats an eye because they all call him she and her and girlfriend. 

When Erik wakes, he tries to forget the dream had ever even happened. 

  
  


\-----

 

Charles Xavier is the loveliest man Erik has ever had the pleasure of knowing. Erik thinks it might be love. Foolish to be in love. Especially foolish to be in love with a condition like Erik’s. It had been all too obvious to put a word to the dreams and hair and silly urges and everything else, not long after leaving Israel for the big cities of Western Europe. Transexuals is the term Erik’s heard used, for men that want to be women and women that want to be men. By twenty, Erik is already using ‘she’ and ‘her’ whenever she thinks of herself. 

Not out loud, though. Never out loud. Erik doesn’t doubt what she is, she’s been sure of it for ages. But she’s not going to go around announcing it. She lives a dangerous enough life as it is. Hunting Nazis, chasing Shaw. She doesn’t need the added pressures of always wondering if she’ll be arrested for indecency one day, or if she’ll be stopped for a genital check by some passing police officer. Occasionally, she allows herself a night of indulgence, to ease the itch. If she doesn’t, she thinks she might snap one day. On those nights, she goes out to hidden away clubs, places where no one wants to get spotted, and that alone is enough to assure silence. She feels like a clown on those nights, all dolled up for normal people to get a good look and laugh. Still, after a few drinks, it’s easier to pretend that the long auburn hair of the wigs she wears is truly hers, or that the swell of breasts on her chest is natural and not padding. She goes home with some of the men she meets, on occasion, even if most of them just see a gay man playing at games, not the heterosexual woman she is. Or believes she is. She’s not always so sure. 

She doesn’t feel confident enough to assert her womanhood the way some other woman she’s met have. She doesn’t spare it enough thought for that. In fact, she tries not to think too much about it, outside of her dreams and indulgent nights. It works, mostly. It’s worked for twenty-eight years, at least, until she made the mistake of falling in love with a starry eyed Englishman.

Perhaps love is too strong a term. Lust, infatuation might be better words, she ponders as they sit side by side in some dirty strip club private room. ‘ _ You’ve never looked more beautiful’  _ he’d said, and she’d been confused for a moment at the way Angel laughs, until Charles dips into her mind for a moment and demonstrates the illusion. Erik is surly after that, incredibly surly. She hardly says a word the rest of their visit to the club and Charles, wisely, gives her space to brood. It’s not until they’ve returned to their hotel that Charles attempts to breach the subject. 

“Is this about my little trick?” Charles asks, the very moment their room door is closed. “I was only having a little fun. I didn’t think you would mind, considering…” 

Trailing off is probably the best thing Charles can do for his safety, considering Erik still turns to glare at him. “Considering  _ what _ , Charles?” 

“It’s not that I’ve snooped, Erik. I just can’t help but see a person’s through essence in their mind at even the smallest of brushes and, well, there’s no point in both of us lying for no reason when we’re safely in our room, Erik. You’re not quite a man, we both know it,” he says. 

Erik’s jaw tightens and she clings fiercely to her wrist watch to keep herself grounded, lest she do something she regrets. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Charles.” 

“Oh, don’t do this. We both know. I don’t know why you feel so intently that you can’t tell me. I thought you might just need a nudge in the right direction, that’s all,” Charles insists. 

“You don’t get to decide that, Charles. Whether or not I need a nudge,” Erik snaps. She’s angry enough that everything metal in the room trembles, just slightly. 

“Perhaps I overstepped,” he admits. Unfazed by the way Erik is making his watch tighten around his wrist, Charles steps forward and takes Erik’s hand in his. “I’m sorry. Perhaps I shouldn’t have done what I did. But I meant what I said. You’re beautiful, Erik.” 

“Handsome, maybe,” she spits out, trying to tug her hand away. 

Charles’ grip holds steady. “No. Beautiful, like I said.” 

Erik blames the lust and anger clouding her mind for why she leans down and kisses him, harsh and unforgiving. Charles retaliates with equal levels of energy, pushing her back until she tumbles back onto the bed and he leans on top of her, like she’s one of his pretty faced, long haired conquests. From the way he kisses her, Erik can almost let herself believe as though she’s a worthwhile replacement. 

She’d always thought Charles would be a gentle lover, too scared to do much more than go in and out, under the covers, and with the lights turned off. By early morning, she has hickeys and faint finger-shaped bruises all over her to prove her assumptions wrong. So very, very wrong. She’ll be sore for days, she’s sure, but for all the anger and frustration that had fueled their jaunt in bed, she can’t lie to her heart. It’s not just lust she feels for this man. It’s love, no matter how she might wish it wasn’t. 

He holds her after, no matter that they’re cramped in an uncomfortable motel bed for one, or that it’s nearly four in the morning by now. They lay together in the dark silence for a while. Erik feels the hands on the clock tick by lazily. Charles strokes her hair and brings his hand down to her mid back every time, as though she truly did have hair like a woman, that flowed down her neck and shoulders and curled, all lovely. The hand that isn’t playing with her hair is resting on her waist, caressing gently as though her body is soft curves and not hardened muscle. If she closes her eyes and thinks only of Charles, Charles’ hands on her skin, the soreness of him making love to her, the sound of their breathing in the silence of the room… she thinks she might just be able to fool herself, for just a moment, that any of this is real. 

And G-d help her, she’s in love with this man. This foolish, doe eyed man who calls her beautiful and laughs and laughs and laughs, fueled by naivety and champagne. 

  
  
  


\-----

  
  


They become an odd sort of couple after that, the sort that embraces in secret and shares  nothing more than meaningful looks in public. Charles doesn’t care, he’s said many times, he doesn’t feel the slightest bit of shame. It’s Erik who insists upon the secrecy. She has enough trouble in her life. She doesn’t need to invite more. She’s happy to never talk about this at all, truly. It’s Charles who brings it up, time and time again. Usually, when they’re tucked away in their bed late at night, in that sweet voice of his that makes her want to give him the world. 

“You know,” he says one night, running his fingers through her hair, “I don’t have to call you Erik. Not if there’s something else you’d prefer.” 

Erik scowls at him. “My name is the last thing in the world I have that my parents gave me. A man’s name is hardly the biggest hurdle in my way.” 

“All right, all right, you don’t have to look at me like you want to kill me.” Charles laughs. “Erik it is, then. It’s a pretty name on you, love.”  

Another night, as they make love, Charles is careful to keep his hands away from her genitals, because today has been a hard day, and hard days make her want to crawl out of her skin even more than most days. He looks down at her pensively, far more pensive than anyone should ever look with a cock up inside her. His hands trail up her chest, soft and careful like he were caressing breasts, as he always does. 

“You know,” he says, “I have more money than I know what to do with, darling. I could lay down as much money as we need to find you a surgeon to make you happy and comfortable. Like that Christine Jorgensen woman."

“Is this the best time you found to suggest this?” Erik groans, pushing his hands off her chest. They no longer feel loving, but oppressive instead. 

“My timing… could use some help,” Charles admits. It’s an understatement. He shrugs, unfazed as always, and presses a kiss to Erik’s ankle before continuing. “We’ll talk later, I guess.” 

The answer is no, though that’s no surprise to either of them. Erik is happy in her closet. Safe.

They don’t make love the night before Cuba, opting to save their energy and get some proper sleep instead. It doesn’t stop them from sleeping wrapped up in each other’s arms, though. Erik complains plenty about Charles’ lack of tact or wishes he would bring up her condition less and pretend, like she does, that she’s just a man like any other, but for all that, she truly does love this man. She hopes that once Shaw is out of the way, they might be able to start a proper life together, somehow. Most everyone living in the mansion suspects there is something between them, anyway, and Erik doesn’t mind pretending to be a homosexual, if it means getting her Charles. 

The clock beside them is ticking down the minutes past midnight, and they really should have been asleep for a while, but Charles is busy pressing kisses to her hair and caressing her clothed hips. “You know,” he says, the same way he always does, “after tomorrow, we can come back and start anew. Maybe you can give my offer some consideration.” 

“Tomorrow, even when Shaw is dead and gone, I’ll still be six feet tall and broad and short haired,” Erik reminds him, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. He means well. She knows that. But he doesn’t understand. She’s jealous of him sometimes. Of his height, his shaggy hair, his crimson red lips. Perhaps this would all be a little easier if she looked more like Charles. 

“So? There’s tall women in the world. Clearly, you’re one of them. But there’s tall women who were born women, as well. Broad ones, too. And your hair will grow in time. I can make everyone think it’s long, in the meantime,” he reminds her, tapping his forehead. “I could make everyone think they’ve only ever seen you as a woman all this time, even.” 

“That’s a horrific abuse of your powers, Charles. Go to sleep. You’re clearly not thinking straight anymore,” she mumbles. She kisses him before he can protest. 

“Fine, fine. But think about it. Good night, beautiful.” Charles pulls the cover further up around them and presses up against her as he closes his eyes to sleep. 

Erik dreams that night, not of his parents or Shaw’s dead body. She dreams of estrogen pills and surgeries and beautiful white wedding dresses and Charles waiting for her under a chuppah. Maybe things really will be different after tomorrow. Maybe… Maybe she’ll even take him up on his offer. 

  
  


\----

 

“We want the same thing.” 

“Oh, my friend. I’m sorry. But we do not.” 

It was naive, perhaps, to ever believe a life of running and fighting could ever become something different. Erik finds that she’s often naive when it comes to Charles. She beckons Moira closer and lets her take over in holding Charles, so she can stand and make her leave. She should have known to never open her heart this way. To think, just last night, she’d let herself believe she was so many things she wasn’t. Peaceful, loving, hopeful, a woman. Foolish, all of it. 

Erik forms a new group to stand beside, one that isn’t quite so vulnerable to childish dreams. All the dreams, the illusions, the love… They get quelled deep down, hopefully to never see the light of day again. It had been a mistake to ever let them out in the first place, to embrace them as though they were normal and acceptable, not simply weakness and delusion. 

Erik takes one last look at Charles, as though it is not difficult enough to leave as it is, until finally, he is gone. And left behind on the beach, to wither and die and never rear its ugly head again, his heart. 

**Author's Note:**

> for questions, prompts, or chatting I can be found on tumblr at [sebbym17](http://sebbym17.tumblr.com/)


End file.
